Aussies win gold at the track

Australia claimed two of the three gold medals up for grabs on the cycling track at Vodafone Arena tonight.

First, Anna Meares held off Englishwoman Victoria Pendleton and older sister Kerrie Meares to win the women’s 500m time trial, then Ben Kersten had a shock victory in the men’s 1km time trial over Englishman Jason Queally and the hot favourite, Scot Chris Hoy.

While the Meares sisters were expected to dominate, Hoy’s loss was unexpected as he was defending his Commonwealth crown and was talking of taking the world record tonight.

But after Kersten smashed Scot Craig MacLean’s time by more than a second to ensure himself a medal, and Hoy’s hottest rival Queally failed to beat Kersten’s time of one minute and 1.815 seconds, it was expected that the confident Hoy would reel the controversial Aussie in.

After 250m, Hoy was under Kersten’s time, but he faded to finish third, sending Kersten – who hit the headlines in 2004 over Olympics selection – and the home crowd into delirium.

Kersten was quick to dedicate his win to those close to him: “They’ve been pretty much everything to me, all my friends and my family. They’ve supported me through everything and gone with me to every race around the world and picked me up when I was down.

“(The win) was as much for them as it was for me, because I felt a lot of pressure to show all their hard work was for a reason.”

Earlier Anna Meares set a Commonwealth record of 34.326 seconds to complete a dream two years for the Olympic champion, with sister Kerry taking out the bronze after setting a good pace first up.

Pendleton broke the Commonwealth record to take the lead off Kerry, but in scenes similar to Athens two years ago, Anna broke a record to snatch gold.

Anna said that while there were added pressures associated with competing at home, she thinks the crowd helped her get over the line.

“You can see it as pressure to perform and get the results, and please the Australian public because they do a fantastic job in coming out to support us. In saying that, their support truly is sensational and without it I don’t think we’d get the performances that we do get.”

In the final event of the night, England swept the medals in the men’s individual pursuit. In the first final heat, England’s Stephen Cummings smashed New Zealander Jason Allen, but his winning time only earned him silver after compatriot Paul Manning eclipsed his time by less than a second in beating Rob Hayles, whose losing time pushed him ahead of the Kiwi to claim bronze and an English treble.

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